Monday, November 24, 2014

I feel like the main change this month has been within me. I
feel much more free to strategize and discipline in out-of-the-box ways instead
of expecting the things that work for other kids to work for you (and just
ignoring the problem when they don’t). It’s also very liberating to understand
that so many of your “problem behaviours” are not really behaviours; you are
not acting out because you want to get attention or manipulate people; you are,
in certain situations, simply not able to act any differently.

It’s also been a busy month. For Halloween, you dressed up
as Wonder Woman. You had a great time trick-or-treating with your Dad. I got to
go to your school that afternoon and watch all the kids in the Halloween
Parade. Also, a few days before that, I got to go on your class field trip: a
hayride in a pumpkin patch! That was an enormous amount of fun for both of us.
I’m so glad I got a chance to enjoy that with you.

You continue to enjoy gymnastics and piano lessons, and
these two extra-curricular activities are all we’re going to attempt for the
time being. I see a huge improvement in your ability and your willingness to
play piano, now that you are in private lessons. I’m so grateful to your
amazing teacher Mrs. H. for working with you to keep the lessons fun and
engaging. You seem quite devoted to her and eager to please her, which works
really well!

Your school days are becoming a bit of a challenge, for
reasons that have nothing to do with your academic skills and abilities. You
are struggling to get along with the other kids and fit in with them. Some of
this is due to the fact that your ADHD brain works differently from theirs, but
a large part of it is due to typical girlhood drama. You are in a girl triangle
with two other girls (A and R) and just about every day it leads to tears.
Either you and A are playing together and R gets rejected, or A and R are
playing together and won’t let you join … etc. Naturally, because emotional
regulation and impulse control are beyond the ADHD brain, your responses to
these situations are WAY over the top and lead to time-outs, interventions from
the teacher, notes home to us, and so on. It’s hard to figure out how to help
you navigate through this, since I’m never going to be there with you when it
happens and it’s hard to predict which circumstance you’ll be facing on any
given day. For the most part you are still a brave, friendly, and outgoing
girl, but from time to time this effort wears on you and you break down crying
that “No one likes me, I don’t have any friends.”

Your school is trying to help, though. Your teacher
recommended you for a “friendship group”; for 45 minutes once a week, you and
two other girls meet outside the classroom with the school’s family support
worker, who helps you learn and practice social skills like approaching people,
making eye contact, initiating conversation, joining play, and so on. None of
these are things that come naturally to you, and I confess I don’t have a clue
how to teach them to you, so I’m absolutely thrilled that someone else is
helping on that score! You enjoy the group, and hopefully it will help you
interact more effectively with your friends and classmates.

We’ve found some strategies at home that are working well,
too. For the first time ever, you have a reward chart. It’s a very simple
chart, really just a grid of squares where I can write in a running tally of
numbers. You can earn points for a variety of things: completing your morning
routine is 75 points, trying a new food is 10 points, practicing piano is 30
points, keeping any house rule is 10 points, and so on. Once a week, on Saturdays,
we examine how many points you have, and you get to pick one reward from the
list. It could be a trip to Dairy Queen (500 points), a playdate with a friend
(1500 points), a family game night (800 points) … your choice. This system
seems to be working for you, and I enjoy it too. It gives me many opportunities
throughout the day to point out your good behavior, and reinforce it.

My favourite part of the new system is the ‘lists’ I made
for each of your daily routines: morning (getting ready for school), afternoon
(getting home from school), and evening (getting ready for bed). I found
clipart online to represent each little piece of the routine that you needed to
follow, for example:

-Putting hat, coat, and shoes away

-Emptying lunchbox

-Putting leftover food in garbage or in fridge

-Rinsing containers and putting in the recycling
or the dishwasher

-Filling water bottle and putting in fridge

-Putting lunchbox away

-Getting out school planner for Mom and Dad to
check

-Removing any other extra items from backpack

This looks like a huge list, but that’s just because it’s
broken down into the smallest possible steps. It actually takes about three
minutes to complete, if you stay on task. I printed these pictures, cut them
out, and hole-punched them so they fit on a binder ring. That way, you can take
the list with you from room to room as you complete the tasks (as opposed to a
checklist on the wall, which you can only see when you are right in front of
it). As an added bonus, the fact that you have something in your hands already
tends to remind you that you are in the middle of a job, and discourages you
from picking up something else and getting involved with that. Since
implementing this system, the number of reminders and nagging I have to do for these
routines has decreased by 60-70%. I can only imagine how that feels for YOU –
for ME, it is WONDERFUL!!

We’re gearing up for Christmas now, and you wrote your
letter to Santa Claus just a couple of days ago. It’s pretty cute.

Here’s the translation:

Dear Santa I hope you can bring me one of these presents.

Ipad #1

Fluttershy train #2

Spirit #3

Barbie mermaid #4 (purple)

Nutcracker #5

Monster High toque kit #6

From: Gwen

To: Santa

Thank you very much

Have a great day

Your writing has come a long way in the last couple of
months, and more importantly, your willingness to write has improved a great
deal. It’s pretty fun to watch you express yourself in this way. Last week we
were talking about palindromes … you know, just like any other six-year-old and
her mom … and I suggested that you make a list of palindromes for your Show and
Tell. You were thrilled with this idea. Last year this would have made you
miserable, to do so much writing. But you happily tackled the task, first
making the list and then writing the list of “cloos” to help your class guess
what your Show and Tell item was (no one guessed, which you tell me is the mark
of a really good Show and Tell item). Your awesome teacher then launched into a
lesson about palindromes. How cool is that? I bet your Uncle Mikey would be
super proud!

Palindromes:

Mom 1

Mmm 2

Dad 3

Racecar 5

Bob 6

Otto 7

Wow 8

Aha 9

Cloos:
It is a kind of word 1

It has mom and dad 2

I made it 3

(Yeah … you have a thing about writing her numbered lists
with the numbers after the item? I don’t know.)

Well, that's it for this month, Gwen. You are an awesome kid - bright, caring, funny, creative, interesting, and fun - and we are so glad to be your parents.